1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to mechanisms of organizing and processing map usage data.
2. Description of the Background Art
Online maps provide geographically related information for many different features (e.g., cities, streets, political bodies, parks, bodies of water, etc.) and presentation formats (e.g., satellite images, maps, photos of addresses, route building, and virtual tours). In order to improve the usability online maps for users, it is useful to know how users are using maps and how they are using maps differently in different regions. Because of the many features available to users and the significant amount usage of online maps—on the order of millions of map accesses every day—analysis of that usage requires extensive processing power and time. Methods of pre-processing the usage data to allow for more efficient analysis of the usage would make improvement of maps faster and easier.